Al Gore remembers the Beatles

Feb. 11, 2014
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Al Gore last month / MANDEL NGAN, AFP/Getty Images

by David Jackson, USA TODAY

by David Jackson, USA TODAY

Every day brings a new 50th-anniversary-of-the-Beatles story, and Tuesday's offering concerns their first live concert in the United States -- which took place in Washington, D.C., so naturally there's a political angle.

The thousands of teenagers who packed the old Washington Coliseum on the night of Feb. 11, 1964, included a future vice president who very nearly became president: Al Gore.

"I'll never forget going to see John, Paul, George and Ringo rock the Washington Coliseum,' Gore tweeted on Tuesday. "Truly an amazing experience."

The Washington Post published an oral history of that concern that included testimony from Gore, who was less than two months shy of his 16th birthday at the time.

Gore, the son of a senator, pointed out that the Beatles' concert before a little more than 8,000 at the tiny coliseum came just two nights after their legendary performance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

"The acoustics in the arena combined with the absolute frenzy of enthusiasm made it virtually impossible to understand a single word that they sang," Gore said. "You had to listen carefully to get the general flow of the song, and of course everybody knew all the words prior to the concert."

The future vice president who lost the disputed 2000 election to George W. Bush added: "We all loved their music, but clearly there were a lot of people in that crowd who loved it even more than I did because they couldn't stop screaming. I'm thrilled that iTunes [got] the film of that concert, because I'll get to hear the words clearly for the first time."